Wet'suwet'en want MacKay removed

The Office of the Wet'suwet'en demands the immediate removal of Liberal backbencher MLA Dennis MacKay as a member of the province's Standing Committee on Children and Youth, and wants him to resign as the government representative for the Bulkley Valley-Stikine constituency.
MacKay lobbed a verbal hand grenade into the centre of the Wet'suwet'en community of First Nations in the Smithers/New Hazelton area when he spoke to the standing committee on March 12. The committee works to improve the lives of British Columbia's most vulnerable children through legislative programming. Aboriginal children make up about half of the child welfare cases in the province.
In a discussion on education outcomes of children in care, there was an exchange between MacKay and Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the province's independent representative of children and youth. In it, MacKay managed not only to offend Canada's residential school survivors by saying that many of the children forced to attend those schools "benefited greatly" from the experience, but he also struck at the core of the First Nations parents in his constituency when he said they lacked the required skills to raise their children adequately.
"I have a daughter that teaches at an Indian reserve," MacKay said. "It's called Moricetown. She comes home some days and she's in tears because of the lack of parenting skills of these people who have had these children."
When Turpel-Lafond tried to explain that the challenges facing some First Nations families today are rooted in the legacy of the residential school system, MacKay said: "I don't believe for a moment that every child that went to a residential school was abused. I think a lot of Aboriginal people benefited greatly from the residential school system, but we never hear from them."
Response to MacKay's comments was swift. In his capacity as Opposition critic for the Children and Families portfolio, Nicholas Simons, the NDP MLA for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, wrote to Premier Gordon Campbell asking that MacKay immediately be replaced "with a member who does not threaten the integrity of the committee."
Simons said MacKay's comments reflect a degree of ignorance that ignores the systemic nature of abuse suffered by First Nations people in the residential school system.
The reputation of the committee "must be held to a standard that not only promotes confidence in its work, but also one that promotes reconciliation and understanding between the committee and First Nations community," said Simons. "The comments made by this member are such that they bring the reputation of the committee into disrepute."
But Liberal MLA Ron Cantelon (Nanaimo-Parksville), chair of the standing committee, accused Simons of taking MacKay's comments out of context and implying slurs for political gain.
"I thought it was a cheap, political trick," he told a reporter from the Times Colonist.
MacKay, however, stood by the comments and added insult to injury in interviews with reporters in the following days.
"I've had a lot of native people tell me that residential schools weren't all bad; that a lot of Native people benefited from the residential schools. All we ever hear about are the negative side, but there's a lot of positive and I've had a good number of Aboriginal people tell me about the positive aspects of the residential schools."
When asked to enumerate those positive aspects, MacKay said "they had warm beds, they had food and they had safety with the schools themselves."
MacKay did say that he didn't mean to imply that all First Nations people are bad parents. "But there are a lot of young native children today-the people who are raising those children don't have adequate parenting skills, in my view," he said. "A lot of native kids come to school not fed. They come to school not having adequate rest."
In a letter to Premier Gordon Campbell, Chief Councilor Ron A. Mitchell of the Moricetown Band said MacKay's comments were insensitive, misinformed and threatened the trusting relationship built over 21 years between the parents and teachers at Moricetown elementary school where MacKay's daughter Laura works.
Debbie Pierre, the executive director of the Office of the Wet'suwet'en told Windspeaker that MacKay's comments were a slap in the face to the people in the territory.
"There is definitely a lot of anger and frustration," said Pierre. She even went so far as to accuse MacKay of waging a campaign to divide the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in the constituency.
"It's been extremely strained," said Pierre, describing the ongoing relationship with their provincial representative. "Dennis MacKay has not been a strong supporter or [ally] to the First Nations within his constituency. As far as we are concerned, this is just one of his veiled attempts to pit First Nations against non-First Nations."
Chief Mitchell also described MacKay as never being a supporter of the Moricetown band or its community initiatives.
"The Moricetown Band Council is very offended by [MacKay's] remarks," Mitchell wrote. "MacKay has only visited our community once in the past six years. How many times has he visited other First Nations communities in his riding."
He described MacKay's comments on residential schools as based on a lack of knowledge about the system's historic roots as a policy to assimilate and destroy First Nations communities.
"Children were forced to attend residential schools and suffered emotional abuse for being First Nations, were forced to eat food not worthy of feeding to animals and were punished for speaking their traditional languages," Mitchell wrote to the premier.
Tom Happynook, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on Vancouver Island, said MacKay's comments were "despicable."
Many First Nations people from MacKay's constituency were sent as far away as Edmonton to attend residential school, and to the island to attend the Alberni Indian Residential School in Port Alberni, one of the most notorious for abuse in all of Canada.
Taking generations of children from their homes and sending them off to be raised in institutions by strangers, said Happynook, was a harmful and abusive act that left deep scars on First Nations people, "just as did the mental, physical, emotional and sexual torments suffered by children in those government- and church-run schools."
MacKay's statements about the positive aspects of residential schools clearly shows "his misguided perspective and ignorance regarding the realities found within the walls of those institutions."
MLA Scott Fraser, (NDP Alberni-Qualicum) the Opposition critic for Aboriginal Affairs, said MacKay doesn't get it."This is just the worst type of stereotyping. If he thinks residential schools were a good thing, he doesn't see them for what they were, an attempt to exterminate culture. He shouldn't be an MLA, but he sure shouldn't be on a children's committee... There may be appropriate committees for MLAs with that attitude, but it shouldn't be one to actually adjudicate children. No way. Maybe he should be on a snowmobile committee or something."
Fraser said he was jumping to the defense of his colleague, Simons, who was accused of taking MacKay's comments out of context. Not only were they not out of context, said Fraser, they were repetitive. MacKay said the same sort of thing about residential schools in the provincial legislature in 2006.
"[O]ur Aboriginals in the province of British Columbia who were taken from their families and placed in residential [schools], it wasn't done out of meanness or to punish those children," reads the Hansard transcript during MacKay's part in a debate on what was called the Apology Act. "It was done out of what I believe was the right thing: to educate those young people.
"Yes, there were some unfortunate consequences from those residential schools, but there was also a lot of good that came from those residential schools. So for those children that were abused while they attended the schools, they were a small number when you look at the total number of Aboriginal kids, but the intent was not there to punish those children. The intent was to educate them and not punish them, not to punish their parents."
Nathan Cullen, member of parliament for Skeena-Bulkley Valley whose federal riding overlaps MacKay's constituency in northern British Columbia, said the MLA's comments "drags us back to a time when the experiences of First Nations in residential schools was of some debate and the government denied that people ever went through any kind of pain at all."
(See MLA on page 11.)
Cullen said MacKay owes people an apology. He said the residential school experiences of the Wetsu'wet'en, Gitxsan and the other Aboriginal peoples of the area were tragic.
"The stories are so painful and the effects are still being felt today across the communities. It's real, it's tangible, and it's a real shame that someone that is supposed to be representing them does not know that."
Cullen said MacKay had a "blaming the victim" mentality.
"I don't know if they (the provincial Liberal Party) show up to the scene of traffic accidents and blame the people that got hit for having been in the way of the car."
Cullen said MacKay is a former police officer and coroner.
"You would think that there would be an awareness and sensitivity to the rights and perspectives of victims, but I guess that wasn't a lesson learned."
Cullen said MacKay's comments about First Nations' parenting skills was the most worrisome statement he's heard from any elected official in the last 20 years.
"To put it down racial lines, I just didn't think that that type of thinking went on, but I guess that was wrong."
He said MacKay is representing a view that is completely out of touch with his constituency. "It's representing a view that makes the problem worse rather than helps us get to solutions. I don't know why the premier would choose someone like this to represent him on this committee, and then expect First Nations people not to be upset about it."
Cullen said there may be "some racist people out there that think First Nations people can't raise their own children, and maybe Mr. MacKay thinks he's defending those interests, but that is not the majority in Bulkley Valley-Stikine. And Debbie Pierre agrees. She said the Wet'suwet'en have a great deal of support in the area. MacKay just doesn't happen to be among that support.
Windspeaker asked Cullen about his use of the word racist. Was he accusing MacKay of being a racist?
"I don't know what to say about somebody who makes statements about a people based upon their race and makes those negative comments," said Cullen. "I've known Dennis for years. I don't know if he is a racist, but if you were to replace all of those words in that statement with 'Jewish' or 'Black' or 'Asian,' what would the reaction be?"
Cullen said the more he talks about the issue, the angrier he gets.
"I'm angered by this. It seems to just set us back and, Lord knows, we need more progress forward: not to go backwards."
The premier's response to MacKay's comments will be most telling, said Cullen, especially if Gordon Campbell "is going to pretend that he is interested in a better relationship with First Nations communities.
"Is he a leader or not? I think a leader is somebody who takes responsibility for the people on their team and stands by his commitments."
On March 20, Windpseaker called the Office of the Premier and asked communications officer Doug Brown if there had been any reaction to MacKay's comments from Premier Campbell. Brown said that the premier was taking some personal time away from the office. He said there would be no response expected before our press deadline.
The hereditary chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en are hopeful that the premier will handle the situation in a way that will satisfy them, but are looking for support from other First Nations that are equally dismayed with MacKay "so that this doesn't fall on deaf ears," said Pierre.
"I'm sure we are not the only First Nations that have faced these types of stereotyping from their political leaders, but I think what's going to be very important is we're going to develop alliances to ensure that these things are addressed and addressed properly, so I'm strongly encouraging that the First Nations in B.C. and throughout Canada back the Moricetown band in their efforts to have [MacKay] removed."
Ironically, while one member of the Campbell Liberal government was perceived to be entrenching stereotypes about First Nations people, other members were unveiling an initiative to encourage school-aged children in British Columbia to make it their personal responsibility to prevent racism.
On March 14, Wally Oppal, attorney general and minister responsible for Multiculturalism, along with Shirley Bond, Education minister and deputy premier, announced Make A Case Against Racism, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racism on March 21.
The plan "encourages young people to take action, within their schools and lives, to help prevent racism by being aware of and responding respectfully to people from other cultures," reads a press release.